Science fiction

Back in high school, Denver Jackson got the idea for a science fiction and fantasy movie called Esluna: A World Beyond, about a land ruled by people with the power to control the wind. Eventually, that idea turned into a web series that recently launched its first season – something Jackson animated by himself. Read More >>

Science fiction writers are professional future-dreamers, imagining worlds far beyond their own. With technology advancing at astronomical rates, real life feels more and more like sci-fi every day (for better or worse). So it’s fun to look back at those writers who, decades and even centuries ago, imagined what life would be like now – and some of their predictions were surprisingly accurate. Read More >>

From the neon-drenched noir of Altered Carbon to the technophobic Black Mirror, dystopia is all over mainstream entertainment these days—and considering the current political climate, it’s easy to see why. But when was the last time you watched a utopian show or movie? Unless, like me, you’re watching Star Trek on repeat forever, it’s probably been a while since your imagination took a trip into a better world. Read More >>

The winners of the 2018 Hugo Awards are here. It might have been the first year for Worldcon’s new rules, designed to curb voting slates that haunted previous years, but it didn’t change the actual results. That’s because, for the third year in a row, women dominated the awards—including another Best Novel win for N.K. Jemisin, making her the first author in Hugo history to win the award three times in a row. Read More >>

Space, as we all know, is the final frontier. It’s the star-spangled playground in which our imaginations run amok, and the setting for stories that made us fall in love with sci-fi. Some of us spent hours pretending we were the Doctor’s companions, helping him find Gallifrey from the TARDIS. Some of us imagined the Millennium Falcon jumping to hyperspace when we shouted, “Punch it, Chewie!” Some of us swore we could hear the communicator beeping when we asked our favourite Federation starship to beam us aboard. The characters that roam space have built homes in our hearts and allowed those of us who are trapped in Earth’s gravity-well to fulfil some of our wildest fantasies. Space remains a vast, untamed place, penned in only by the limits of our own imaginations. Read More >>

Severalnews outletshaveclaimed that scientists have created a “cloaking device” like those seen on Star Trek, but that’s not quite what happened. The cloaking devices on Star Trek bend light to render an object invisible, and the new device merely deflects sound. The technology also isn’t so new, as others are working on devices like these. It’s still cool, though. Read More >>

The Planet of the Apes prequels did much to explain how humans lost their status as the dominant species on the planet—a cataclysmic set of events fueled by a global pandemic known as the “Simian Flu.” This virus, the product of a medical experiment gone horribly wrong, wiped out the vast majority of humans, but it boosted the brains of apes. And in the latest installment of the franchise, the virus has mutated into an insidious new form, affecting humans in some disturbing new ways. That’s a lot for a single virus to do, prompting the inevitable question: How feasible is the Simian Flu from a scientific perspective? Read More >>

It’s a beautiful tale of graciousness and sacrifice. Hopeless, drug-addled mice, suddenly stricken with diabetes, are offered a cure at the mercy of their all-knowing scientist overlords. Their rat-tailed comrades miraculously grew functioning mouse pancreases and the higher power, blessed be, healed the mice with the bounty. Amen! Read More >>

We’ve all been there: building a scale model of the Death Star in our basement and thinking, “I just wish this had a tractor beam to grab onto my tiny styrofoam Millennium Falcon.” Now, thanks to a team of scientists, you can put the finishing touches on that model with your very own sonic tractor beam. Okay, maybe we haven’t all been there, but I’m sure someone has been there. Read More >>

The weeks between September and mid-November are a bountiful time for book releases, with new works from Alan Moore, Connie Willis, Christopher Priest, Ken Liu, Margaret Atwood, and Fran Wilde, to name just a few. Clear some space in your schedule, and on your shelves—you’re going to need it. Read More >>

Science fiction and fantasy offer a rich legacy of great books — but that abundant pile of reading material can also be daunting. So sometimes, it’s easier to fake it. We asked some of our favourite writers, and they told us the 10 books that everyone pretends to have read. And why you should actually read them. Read More >>